mingw-w64 threads: posix vs win32

GCC comes with a compiler runtime library (libgcc) which it uses for (among other things) providing a low-level OS abstraction for multithreading related functionality in the languages it supports. The most relevant example is libstdc++'s C++11 <thread>, <mutex>, and <future>, which do not have a complete implementation when GCC is built with its internal Win32 threading model. MinGW-w64 provides a winpthreads (a pthreads implementation on top of the Win32 multithreading API) which GCC can then link in to enable all the fancy features.

I must stress this option does not forbid you to write any code you want (it has absolutely NO influence on what API you can call in your code). It only reflects what GCC's runtime libraries (libgcc/libstdc++/...) use for their functionality. The caveat quoted by @James has nothing to do with GCC's internal threading model, but rather with Microsoft's CRT implementation.

To summarize:

• posix: enable C++11/C11 multithreading features. Makes libgcc depend on libwinpthreads, so that even if you don't directly call pthreads API, you'll be distributing the winpthreads DLL. There's nothing wrong with distributing one more DLL with your application.
• win32: No C++11 multithreading features.

Neither have influence on any user code calling Win32 APIs or pthreads APIs. You can always use both.

Parts of the GCC runtime (the exception handling, in particular) are dependent on the threading model being used. So, if you're using the version of the runtime that was built with POSIX threads, but decide to create threads in your own code with the Win32 APIs, you're likely to have problems at some point.

Even if you're using the Win32 threading version of the runtime you probably shouldn't be calling the Win32 APIs directly. Quoting from the MinGW FAQ:

As MinGW uses the standard Microsoft C runtime library which comes with Windows, you should be careful and use the correct function to generate a new thread. In particular, the CreateThread function will not setup the stack correctly for the C runtime library. You should use _beginthreadex instead, which is (almost) completely compatible with CreateThread.

Note that it is now possible to use some of C++11 std::thread in the win32 threading mode. These header-only adapters worked out of the box for me: https://github.com/meganz/mingw-std-threads

From the revision history it looks like there is some recent attempt to make this a part of the mingw64 runtime.